Eating Crypto for a Week in LA – Day 7

I posted on twitter that I was looking to trade crypto for an interesting food, and doge4water creator Eric Nawagawa tipped me one lunch via ChangeTip. I’d been meaning to write about tipping on Spelunk.in for a while, because it’s one of my favorite parts of the crypto scene.

Because it doesn’t really cost much to move digital currencies from one place to another, it’s perfect for microtransactions. This is essentially why dogecoin is a success- you can send someone a fraction of a penny to make them smile. On twitter, there are two popular tipbot services: ChangeTip and TipDoge. Today we’re gonna talk about ChangeTip, since that’s how my lunch happened.

ChangeTip calls itself a Love Button for the Internet. it uses Bitcoin. Twitter was one of the early destinations they supported, but you can use them to send tips on Github, Reddit, and StockTwits. In beta are also Tumblr, YouTube, G+, and Facebook. I recommend you make an account and try it out! The recipient does need to make a ChangeTip account to receive their bitcoin, but it’s super easy. And then they have a little bitcoin to tip with!

“For me it is a virtual hug. An invitation for friendship. Always welcome and can turn someones day around,” said Twitter shibe Bitcoinbegger.

Tips can also be used to fund a goal- when there’s a big charity initiative online, tipping allows hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world to essentially throw pennies at the problem and make it go away. When done en masse, great things can happen.

Okay, so I got tipped a lunch- I asked what I should eat.

Emoticon Lunch Challenge Accepted. Thanks Eric!

A new ramen place had opened called Ramen Yamadaya, so I went to check it out with Rhona. It was really good- I got the Tonkotsu. Nice alternative to the other ramen in the area. Rhona ended up paying for the meal, so I had her download Coin Pocket for her iPhone and take bitcoin from me. She’d never done it before and was hesitant about not being able to use it anywhere, until I mentioned that she could get books at Meltdown Comics.

I went back to working after lunch, and grabbed the last random candy I had bought at Meltdown. I thought it was going to be Ramune-flavored hard candy, but it turned out to be gum. The packaging is based on a popular oldschool manga about a robotic cat named Doraemon. It’s super cute.

Since I wasn’t going to subject my boyfriend to eggs for dinner, I suggested a tiny cheat- I’d use Foodler to order. Foodler is a food delivery service like Grubhub. It costs a bit extra but enables restaurants who normally don’t deliver to offer it to their customers. Only about 6 places actually deliver to my apartment, which is pretty surprising. Half of them are Indian. I picked India’s Tandoori, a place I’d driven by a lot and never tried.

You send bitcoin to Foodler, buying Foodler Bucks. Those can then be spent on food. It looked like you could do the same thing with gift cards. I sent in bitcoin and even did the tip online. I’m glad that I wasn’t particularly hungry when I started the order, because it took forever. Sending bitcoin from my iOS blockchain app to Foodler took 20 minutes. Foodler then sent my order to the Indian place, which took about an hour and a half. I eventually called them and the person on the phone apologized a bunch. After another 10mins we had dinner! (9:30ish)

I’d gotten the Sag Paneer and Dave got Chicken Tikka Masala. Also got rice, naan, parata (fried flatbread), and rice pudding. I super loved the Sag Paneer. Rice pudding was unimpressive. While I wish the place took bitcoin directly, it was very nice having more places as options. Running orders through a service like Foodler does mean that there’s both a delivery charge and a tip for the driver, so it makes bitcoin a more expensive option than just eating at the place.